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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Posted on 14 September 2016 by dana1981

The GOP has become the Grand Oil Party. The fossil fuel industry has now managed to dictate Republican Party actions on climate change in attorney generals offices, Congress, and for the party’s presidential nominee.

Fossil fuel giants Murray Energy and Southern Company paid for meetings with Republican attorneys general to discuss their opposition to the Clean Power Plan less than two weeks before the same GOP officials petitioned federal courts to block the Obama administration’s signature climate proposal, according to private emails

These fossil fuel companies were offered the opportunity to meet with GOP attorneys general in exchange for financial donations to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) to help fund their re-election campaigns. The documents revealed that the attorneys then discussed “the future of the fight to stop the Clean Power Plan.”

According to materials reviewed by CMD, since 2015 RAGA has received at least $100,000 from ExxonMobil, $350,000 from Koch Industries, $85,000 from Southern Company, $378,250 from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), and $250,000 from Murray Energy. In total, fossil fuel interests, utilities and their trade groups have given more than $2.25 million to RAGA since 2015.

State attorneys general are supposed to enforce the law and serve the public interest, but instead these Republican officials have hung a ‘For Sale’ sale on their door, and the fossil fuel industry proved to be the highest bidder. It’s no coincidence that GOP attorneys general have mounted an aggressive fight alongside the fossil fuel industry to block the Clean Power Plan – that appears to be exactly what the industry paid for. Together, these documents reveal a sustained pattern of collusion between the fossil fuel industry and the Republican attorneys general on climate change obstructionism.

Comments

Is big oil influencing the Republicans? Donald Trump does indeed appear to listen closely and surround himself with the fossil fuel lobby, and climate denialism people. Big oil is influential, and is implicated in attempts to discredit science, and this is all so reminiscent of the tobacco wars. The suggestion of an alternative “scientific method” shows how addicted people are to oil, and how desperate they will become.

We have lobby groups and corporations funding election campaigns, so obviously they have huge influence over politicians, and the Republicans in particular seem extremely eager to please. The limits in the past on campaign funding in America have been weakened over the last 20 years, due to constant business lobbying, to give the lobby groups absolute power as below. This is the context that empowers climate change denialism.

I came across this recently. Currently Trump claims climate change is just a hoax by the Chinese to damage American industry, which is of course totally ludicrous. However 7 years ago Trump called for urgent action to stop climate change, as below

Trump is constantly changing his mind on too many things, and this does not seem like good leadership to me. Trump is possibly making climate change science a sort of expendable tool, to be manipulated or discarded to further his other agendas. This is really dangerous for humanity, and shows his contempt for science.

At the latest rally in PA(2 Oct, 2016), Trump clarified what his credo for US is about. Ignoring teleprompter, he repeatedly roared highly emmotionally loaded slogans, among others:

"You're unsuspecting," Trump said. "Right now, you say to your wife: 'Let's go to a movie after Trump.' But you won't do that because you'll be so high and so excited that no movie is going to satisfy you. OK? No movie. You know why? Honestly? Because they don't make movies like they used to - is that right?"

and finishing with:

"You have 38 days to make every dream you ever dreamed for your country come true," Trump said. "Do not let this opportunity slip away or be wasted. You will never ever have this chance again. Not going to happen again - You have one magnificent chance."

That's not just ignorance of science we're concerned about here. That's simply ignorance of the reality. A nostalgic appeal to "movies of the past" plus a narcistic "dream" and "magnificent chance" but nothing of substance. He might as wwell say to the crowd: put your head in the sand and dream on.

Pepole like to dream, that's why such speach is liked. Even if reality clearly points out the dream to be pure illusion. IMO, the same mechanism applies in a norrower sense to the problem of burning FF which puts us living closer to the dream of living with boundless energy, be able to fly accrosss the ocean, drive your SUV, etc. Even though the reality tells us very loudly now that such lifestyle is unsustainble.

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